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50-Minute Sessions

Shared Interest (SI)

Fatness Takes Flight: Supporting Body Diversity on International Programs

Wednesday, May 28, 2025
2:30 PM – 3:20 PM PST
Body diversity is a vital (and often overlooked) topic in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts for international education. Antifatness and size discrimination create inequitable experiences for plus-size students. This session explores the impact of systemic antifatness on study abroad and offers strategies to make programs more inclusive and accessible to diverse body types.

Learning Objectives:

  • Apply intersectional approaches to fatness, and how to frame fatness as a DEI issue related to ableism, racism, sexism and other forms of systemic oppression. Define and classify terms such as “fatness” “body positivity” “body-shaming” “fat liberation” “diet culture” “obesity” “BMI” “healthism”/”ableism” “fatphobia” and “anti-fatness.”
  • Distinguish how anti-fatness can be present in the study abroad experience, such as in cultural attitudes towards body size, airplane travel, mobility, medical discrimination, and clothing access.
  • Develop or modify inclusive advising and pre-departure practices for larger bodies in study abroad, through case-study scenarios and group work about issues fat students may encounter.